Woodrow Wilson and the World War Part 8

CHAPTER XI

BALANCE OF POWER OR LEAGUE OF NATIONS?

Whatever mistakes President Wilson made at Paris, he did not greatly underestimate the difficulties of his task when he set forth from the United States. The liberal utterances of the Allied chiefs during the war had never succeeded in winning his sincere confidence; more than once he had even intimated that he did not consider their governments completely representative of public opinion. He antic.i.p.ated a struggle with Clemenceau and Lloyd George over the amount of indemnity which was to be demanded from Germany, as well as over the territory of which she was to be deprived. Their formal approval of the Fourteen Points had been a cause of intense satisfaction to him, but he realized definitely that they would make every effort to interpret them in terms of purely national self-interest. This he regarded as the greatest difficulty to be met at Paris. The second difficulty lay in the extreme demands that were being made by the smaller nationalities, now liberated from Teuton dominion or overlords.h.i.+p. Poland, Rumania, Serbia, Greece, were all asking for territory which could only be a.s.signed to them on the ancient principle of the division of spoils among the victors. The spirit of nationalism which had played a role of so much importance in the antecedents of the war, as well as in the downfall of the Central Empires, now threatened to ruin the peace. As we have seen, it was partly because of this second danger that Wilson agreed to the exclusion of the smaller states from the Supreme Council of the Allies.

Upon the details of the treaties, whether of an economic or a territorial character, the President did not at first lay great stress. He was interested chiefly in the spirit that lay behind the treaties. The peace, he insisted, must be one of justice and, if possible, one of reconciliation. More concretely, the great point of importance was the establishment of a League of Nations; for the President believed that only through the building up of a new international system, based upon the concert of all democratic states, could permanent justice and amity be secured. Only a new system could suffice to prevent the injustice that great states work upon small, and to stamp out the germs of future war. It would be the single specific factor that would make this treaty different from and better than treaties of the past. The ultimate origin of the great war was less to be sought in the aspirations and malevolence of Germany, he believed, than in the disorganized international system of Europe. Unless that were radically reformed, unless a regime of diplomatic cooperation were subst.i.tuted for the Balance of Power, neither justice nor peace could last. The old system had failed too often.

Wilson does not seem to have formulated definitely before he reached Paris the kind of League which he desired to see created. He was opposed to such intricate machinery as that proposed by the League to Enforce Peace, and favored an extremely simple organization which might evolve naturally to meet conditions of the future. The chief organ of a League, he felt, should be an executive council, possibly composed of the amba.s.sadors to some small neutral power. If trouble threatened in any quarter, the council was to interfere at once and propose a settlement.

If this proved unsuccessful, a commercial boycott might be inst.i.tuted against the offending state: it was to be outlawed, and, as Wilson said, "outlaws are not popular now." He regarded it as important that the German colonies should not be divided among the Allies, but should be given to the League, to be administered possibly through some smaller power; for an inst.i.tution, he felt, is always stabilized by the possession of property.

Such were, broadly speaking, the ideas which seemed uppermost in the President's mind when he landed in France, and which he was determined should form the basis of the peace. He antic.i.p.ated opposition, and he was in a measure prepared to fight for his ideals. But he failed adequately to appreciate the confusion which had fallen upon Europe, after four years and more of war, and which made the need of a speedy settlement so imperative. If he had gauged more accurately the difficulties of his task he would have been more insistent upon the drafting of a quick preliminary peace, embodying merely general articles, and leaving all the details of the settlement to be worked out by experts at their leisure.

He might thus have utilized his popularity and influence when it was at its height, and have avoided the loss of prestige which inevitably followed upon the discussion of specific issues, when he was compelled to take a stand opposed to the national aspirations of the various states. Such a general preliminary treaty would have gone far towards restoring a basis for the resumption of normal political and economic activity; it would have permitted Wilson to return to the United States as the unquestioned leader of the world; it would have blunted the edge of senatorial opposition; and finally it might have enabled him to avoid the controversies with Allied leaders which compelled him to surrender much of his original programme in a series of compromises.

It is only fair to Wilson to remember that his original plan, in November, was to secure such a preliminary treaty, which was to embody merely the general lines of a territorial settlement and the disarmament of the enemy. The delays which postponed the treaty were not entirely his fault. Arriving in France on the 13th of December, he expected that the Conference would convene on the seventeenth, the date originally set. But days pa.s.sed and neither the French nor the British took steps toward the opening of negotiations. They had not even appointed their delegates.

Lloyd George sent messages of welcome from across the Channel, but explained that domestic affairs detained him in England. Conscious of the struggle that was likely to arise between the "practical" aspirations of Europe and the "idealism" of America, the Allied leaders evidently were in no hurry to give to the exponent of the ideal the advantage of the popular support that he enjoyed during the early days following his arrival upon European sh.o.r.es. Hence it was not until the second week of January that the delegations began to a.s.semble at Paris. In the interval Wilson had become involved in various detailed problems and he had lost the opportunity, if indeed it ever offered, to demand immediate agreement on preliminary terms of peace.

Notwithstanding the delays, the President secured an early triumph in the matter which he had closest at heart, namely, a League of Nations and its incorporation in the Treaty. Clemenceau had taken issue publicly with Wilson. When the President, in the course of his English speeches, affirmed that this was the first necessity of a world which had seen the system of alliances fail too often, the French Premier replied in the Chamber of Deputies, on the 29th of December, that for his part he held to the old principle of alliances which had saved France in the past and must save her in the future, and that his sense of the practical would not be affected by the "_n.o.ble candeur_" of President Wilson. The polite sneer that underlay the latter phrase aroused the wrath of the more radical deputies, but the Chamber gave Clemenceau an overwhelming vote of confidence as he thus threw down the gage. In the meantime Lloyd George had shown himself apparently indifferent to the League and much more interested in what were beginning to be called the "practical issues."

With the opening of the Conference, however, it soon became apparent that Wilson had secured the support of the British delegates. It is possible that a trade had been tacitly consummated. Certain it is that the "freedom of the seas," which the British delegates were determined should not enter into the issues of the Peace Conference and which had threatened to make the chief difficulty between British and Americans, was never openly discussed. Had Wilson decided to drop or postpone this most indefinite of his Fourteen Points, on the understanding that the British would give their support to the League? At all events, the League of Nations was given an important place on the programme of deliberations, and at the second of the plenary sessions of the Conference, held on January 25, 1919, the principle of a League was approved without a dissentient voice; it was also decided that the League should be made an integral part of the Treaty. Wilson, in addition to acquiring British support had won that of the Italians, to whom he had promised his aid in securing the Brenner frontier in the Tyrol.

Clemenceau, according to an American delegate, "had climbed on the band-wagon."

The President's victory was emphasized when he also won the Europeans and the representatives of the British overseas Dominions to acceptance of the principle of "mandatories," according to which the German colonies were not to be distributed as spoils amongst the victors, but to become the property of the League and to be administered by the mandatory states, not for their own benefit but for that of the colonies. The victory was not complete, since Wilson's first intention had been that the mandatory states should not be the great powers, but such states as Holland or one of the Scandinavian nations. He was compelled to admit the right of the British and French to take over the colonies as mandatories.

Even so, the struggle over the issue was intense, Premier Hughes of Australia leading the demand that the German colonies should be given outright to the Allies and the British self-governing Dominions. Again the support of Lloyd George brought success to the American policy.

In order to a.s.sure his victory in the foundation of a League of Nations, it was necessary that before returning home Wilson should see some definite scheme elaborated. Until the 14th of February he labored with the special committee appointed to draft a specific plan, which included much of the best political talent of the world: Lord Robert Cecil, General s.m.u.ts, Venizelos, Leon Bourgeois. In order to avoid the criticism that consideration of a League was delaying the preparation of peace terms, the commission met in the evenings so as not to interrupt the regular meetings of the Council of Ten. It was a _tour de force_, this elaboration of a charter for the new international order, in less than three weeks. At times the task seemed hopeless as one deadlock after another developed. Wilson, who presided over the commission, lacked the skill and courage displayed by Clemenceau in his conduct of the plenary sessions, and proved unable to prevent fruitless discussion; possibly he feared lest he be regarded as autocratic in pus.h.i.+ng his pet plan. At all events precious moments were dissipated in long speeches, and general principles threatened to be lost in a maze of details. With but two days left before the plenary session of the Conference and the date set for Wilson's sailing, the commission had approved only six of the twenty-seven articles of the Covenant. Fortune intervened. The presence of Wilson was demanded at the Council of Ten and his place as chairman was taken by Lord Robert Cecil. The latter showed himself effective. Ably seconded by Colonel House, he pa.s.sed over all details and pushed the final stages of the report through at top speed; on the 14th of February the Covenant of the League was completed. It was sanctioned by the plenary session of the Conference that afternoon, and in the evening Wilson left for America with the doc.u.ment in his pocket. Doubtless it seemed to him that the major portion of his task had been accomplished.

The mechanism of the League thus proposed is said to have been largely evolved by s.m.u.ts and Cecil, but it coincided roughly with the ideas that Wilson had already conceived. Much of the language of the Covenant is Wilson's; its form was mainly determined by the British and American legal experts, C. J. B. Hurst and D. H. Miller. It provided for an executive council representing nine powers, and a deliberative a.s.sembly of all the members of the League. The Council must meet annually and take under advis.e.m.e.nt any matters threatening to disturb international peace. Its recommendations must be unanimous. The a.s.sembly was entirely without executive power. The members of the League were to agree not to make war without first submitting the matter under dispute to arbitration or to the consideration of the Council. Failure to abide by this agreement would const.i.tute an act of war against the League, which upon recommendation of the Council, might boycott the offending state economically or exercise military force against it. The Covenant declared it "to be the friendly right of each Member of the League to bring to the attention of the a.s.sembly or of the Council any circ.u.mstance whatever affecting international relations which threatens to disturb international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which peace depends." The members of the League, furthermore, undertook "to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing independence of all members of the League. In case of any such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled" (Article X). These two provisions embodied the particular contributions of Wilson to the Covenant, who believed that the capacity of the League to preserve justice and peace depended chiefly upon them. The Covenant also provided in some measure for military and naval disarmament by giving to the Council the right to recommend the size of the force to be maintained by each member of the League, and it attacked secret diplomacy by abrogating previous obligations inconsistent with the Covenant and by providing that every future treaty must be registered and published.

If the President expected to be hailed at home as conquering hero, he was destined to bitter disappointment. He must now pay the price for those tactical mistakes which had aroused opinion against him in the previous autumn. The elements which he had antagonized by his war-policies, by his demand for a Democratic Congress, by his failure to cooperate with the Senate in the formulation of American policy and in the appointment of the Peace Commission, and which had opposed his departure in person to Paris--all those elements now had their chance. Having won a difficult victory over reactionary forces in Europe, Wilson was now compelled to begin the struggle over again at home. And whereas at Paris he had displayed some skill in negotiation and an att.i.tude of conciliation even when firm in his principles, upon his return he adopted a tone which showed that he had failed to gauge the temper of the people. He probably had behind him the majority of the independent thinkers, even many who disliked him personally but who appreciated the importance and the value of the task he was trying to carry through. The ma.s.s of the people, however, understood little of what was going on at Paris. The situation abroad was complex and it had not been clarified adequately by the press.

Opinion needed to be educated. It wanted to know why a League was necessary and whether its elaboration was postponing peace and the return of the doughboys. Why must the League be incorporated in the Treaty? And did the League put the United States at the mercy of European politicians and would it involve our country in a series of European wars in which we had no interest?

What followed must be counted as little less than a tragedy. The man of academic antecedents with masterly powers of exposition, who had voiced popular thought during the years of the war so admirably, now failed completely as an educator of opinion. The President might have shown that the League Covenant, instead of postponing peace, was really essential to a settlement, since it was to facilitate solutions of various territorial problems which might otherwise hold the Conference in debate for months.

He could have demonstrated with a dramatic vigor which the facts made possible, the anarchical condition of Europe and the need for some sort of international system of cooperation if a new cataclysm was to be avoided, and he might have pictured the inevitable repercussive effect of such a cataclysm upon America. He might have shown that in order to give effect to the terms of the Treaty, it was necessary that the League Covenant should be included within it. He could have emphasized the fact that the Covenant took from Congress no const.i.tutional powers, that the Council of the League, on which the United States was represented, must be unanimous before taking action, and then could only make recommendations. But the President failed to explain the situation in terms comprehensible to the average man. However adequate his addresses seemed to those who understood the situation abroad, they left the American public cold. His final speech in the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City was especially unfortunate, for his statement that he would bring back the Treaty and the League so intertwined that no one could separate them sounded like a threat. At the moment when he needed the most enthusiastic support to curb the opposition of the Senate, he alienated thousands and lost the chance to convince tens of thousands.

These developments did not pa.s.s unnoticed in Europe. Clemenceau and Lloyd George had yielded to Wilson during the first weeks of the Conference because they could not afford to separate their fortunes from the United States, upon whom they depended for economic support, and because an open break with Wilson would weaken their own position with liberals in France and England. But now it became apparent to them that Wilson's position at home was so unstable that they might be justified in adopting a stronger tone. Each of them could point to the tangible evidence of victorious elections and votes of confidence. President Wilson could not. The party in the Senate which, after the 4th of March, would hold the majority, expressly repudiated Wilson's policy. When the President returned to Paris, on the 14th of March, he found a different atmosphere. The League was no longer the central topic of discussion. Concrete questions were uppermost. How much should Germany pay? What territory should be taken from her? How was the Kaiser to be punished? Wilson had been given the satisfaction of securing approval for the principle of the League. Now he must permit the Conference to satisfy the practical aspirations of France, England, and Italy.

It is a tribute to the personality of Wilson that by his presence at this critical juncture, when the att.i.tude of the Allies differed but slightly, if at all, from that of the powers at the Congress of Vienna, he was able to bring back something of the spirit of justice which had been so frequently and loudly declaimed before the armistice, and to repress at least in some degree the excessive claims which demanded satisfaction in the treaties. The plans which, during his absence, had been evolved for the separation of the Covenant from the Treaty and for its postponement, and which had received the hearty support of several French and British diplomats, were quickly dropped. Wilson was able to announce without contradiction, that the Covenant would be an integral part of the Treaty, as decided on the 25th of January. Far more difficult was the situation that resulted from French and British plans for indemnities from Germany, and from the French territorial claims on the Rhine. In each of these matters Wilson could secure nothing better than a compromise.

From the day when peace dawned upon Europe, the question that had touched Allied peoples most closely was, How much will Germany pay? It was not so much the shout of the brutal victor greedy for loot, as the involuntary cry of nations which had seen their homes and factories pulverized, their s.h.i.+ps sunk, the flower of their youth killed and maimed, and which now faced years of crus.h.i.+ng taxation. They had carried the load of war gallantly and they would enter the struggle for recuperation courageously.

But they would not endure that the enemy, which had forced these miseries upon them, should not make good the material damage that had been done.

What was the meaning of the word justice, if the innocent victors were to emerge from the war with keener sufferings and more gloomy future than the guilty defeated? Another question stirred the mind of every Frenchman. For generations the eastern frontier of France had lain open to the invasion of the Teuton hordes. The memory of Prussian brutality in 1814 had been kept alive in every school; the horrors of 1870 had been told and retold by partic.i.p.ants and eye-witnesses; and the world had seen the German crimes of 1914. From all France the cry went up, How long? It would be the most criminal stupidity if advantage were not taken of the momentary helplessness of the inevitable enemy in order to make that vulnerable frontier secure. This was not the end. Some day the struggle would be renewed. Already, within two months of the armistice, the French General Staff were considering mobilization plans for the next war. France must be made safe while she had the chance.

These feelings had such a hold on the people that the statesmen of Europe would have been over-thrown on the day they forgot them. Popular sentiment was reenforced by practical considerations less justifiable.

Crus.h.i.+ng indemnities would not merely ease the load of Allied taxation and furnish capital for rapid commercial development; they would also remove Germany as an economic compet.i.tor. French control of all territory west of the Rhine would not only a.s.sure France against the danger of another German invasion, but would also provide her capitalists with a preponderating economic advantage in regions by no means French in character. Such selfish interests the Americans strove to set aside, although they never forgot their desire to secure as complete justice for the Allies as seemed compatible with a stable and tranquil settlement.

In the matter of indemnities, or reparations as they came to be called, the experts of the various powers soon established the fact that Germany would be unable to pay the total bill of reparation, even at the most conservative reckoning. There was a long discussion as to whether or not the costs of war, aside from material damage done, that had been incurred by the Allies, should be included in the amount that Germany was to pay.

It was finally determined, in accordance with the arguments of the American financial delegates who were warmly supported by President Wilson, that such war costs should be excluded. On the other hand it was agreed that pensions might properly be made part of Germany's reparation bill. The two items of damages and pensions were calculated by the American experts as amounting to a total figure of not less than $30,000,000,000 present capital sum, which Germany ought to pay.

The next step was to determine how much Germany could be made to pay. By drafting too severe terms German trade might be destroyed completely and Germany left without the economic capacity to make the money that was to pay the bill. It was obvious to careful students that the total amount which she could turn over to the Allies could not be much more than the excess of her exports over imports; and that even if payments were extended over twenty or thirty years their value for purposes of reparation would probably not much exceed twenty-five billion dollars.

Lloyd George in his election pledges had promised that the complete reparations account would be settled by the enemy; neither he nor Clemenceau dared to confess that the sum which could be exacted from Germany would fall far below their early promises. The British experts, Sumner and Cunliffe, continued to encourage Lloyd George in his belief that Germany could afford to pay something in the neighborhood of a hundred billion dollars, and the French Finance Minister, Klotz, was equally optimistic. At first, accordingly, Allied demands on Germany seemed likely to be fantastic.

The Americans, on the other hand, were infinitely more conservative in their estimates of what Germany could pay. Even after certain Allied experts, including Montagu and Loucheur, affirmed the necessity of scaling down the suggested sum of reparations, the difference between the American proposals and those of the Allies was serious.[13] Political considerations, however, interposed, and preventing the settling of a definite total sum which Germany must pay. Neither Lloyd George nor Clemenceau dared to go to their const.i.tuents with the truth, namely that Germany could not possibly pay the enormous indemnities which the politicians had led the people to expect. (Lloyd George, for example, had stated the sum that Germany must pay at about $120,000,000,000.) Both the chiefs of state a.s.serted that they were almost certain to be turned out of office as a result, with consequent confusion in the Peace Conference, and a prolongation of the crisis. The only escape seemed to be in a postponement of the problem by not naming any definite sum which Germany must pay, but requiring her to acknowledge full liability. The disadvantages of this method were apparent to the President and his financial advisers, for it was clear that the economic stability of the world could not be restored until the world knew how much Germany was going to pay.

[Footnote 13: At first the French and British refused to name any specific sum that might be collected from Germany, requesting the Americans to submit estimates. The latter named $5,000,000,000 as representing a sum that might be collected prior to May 1, 1921, and thereafter a capital sum as high as $25,000,000,000, always provided that the other clauses in the treaty did not too greatly drain Germany's resources. After some weeks of discussion the French experts stated that if the figures could be revised up to $40,000,000,000 they would recommend them to their chiefs. The British refused to accept a figure below $47,000,000,000.]

Equally difficult was the problem of the French frontier. The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France was unanimously approved. The French claimed in addition, the districts of the Saar, with their valuable coal-fields, a portion of which had been left to France after the first abdication of Napoleon but annexed to Prussia after his defeat at Waterloo; and they contended that if the German territories west of the Rhine were not to be annexed to France, they must at least be separated from Germany, which had secured a threatening military position mainly through their possession. American experts had felt inclined to grant a part of the Saar region to France as compensation for the wanton destruction of French mines at Lens and Valenciennes by the Germans; but both Wilson and Lloyd George were opposed to absolute annexation of the district which the French demanded, including, as it did, more than six hundred thousand Germans and no French. Wilson was definitely hostile to any attempt to separate from the Fatherland such purely German territory as that on the left bank of the Rhine. The Allies, as well as himself, had given a.s.surances that they did not aim at the dismemberment of Germany, and it was on the basis of such a.s.surances that the Germans had asked for an armistice. Wilson admitted that from the point of view of military strategy the argument of Foch was unanswerable, under the old conditions; but he insisted that the League of Nations would obviate the necessity of the strategic protection asked for.

The struggle over these issues nearly broke the back of the Conference.

If Clemenceau had yielded in January when the League was demanded by Wilson, it was with the mental reservation that when the "practical"

issues came up, the victory should be his. The French press were not slow to give support to their Government, and within a short time the President, so recently a popular idol, found himself anathematized as a pro-German and the sole obstacle to a speedy and satisfactory peace. The more noisy section of the British press followed suit. Liberals were silenced and American idealism was cursed as meddlesome myopia. For some days the deadlock appeared interminable and likely to become fatal. In a contest of obstinacy even Wilson could be matched by Clemenceau. The increasing bitterness of French attacks upon the Americans began to tell upon Wilson; for the first time his physical strength seemed likely to collapse under the strain. Matters were brought to a head by a bold stroke, on the 7th of April, when Wilson ordered the _George Was.h.i.+ngton_ to sail for Brest. The inference was plain: the President would leave the Conference unless the Allies abated their claims.

The week of strain was followed by one of adjustment. Fearing an open break with America, Allied leaders showed themselves anxious to find a compromise, and Wilson himself was willing to meet them part way, since he realized that without France and England his new international system could never operate. Colonel House found opportunity for his tested skill and common sense as a mediator, and he was a.s.sisted by Tardieu, who proved himself to be fertile in suggestions for a practical middle course. As in the case of all compromises, the solutions satisfied no one completely. But clearly some sort of treaty had to be framed, if the world were to resume normal life and if the spread of social revolution were to be checked. At least the compromises had the virtue of winning unanimity, without which Europe could not be saved.

The indemnity problem was settled, at least for the moment, by postponing a final definite statement of the total amount that Germany must pay. It was decided that the sum of five billion dollars (twenty billion gold marks), in cash or kind, should be demanded from Germany as an initial payment, to be made before May 1, 1921. Certain abatements were to be permitted the Germans, since this sum was to include the expenses of the army of occupation, which were reckoned as in the neighborhood of a billion dollars; and supplies of food and raw materials, which Germany might need to purchase, could be paid for out of that sum. In the second place, Germany was required to deliver interest-bearing bonds to a further amount of ten billions; and, if the initial payment of cash fell short of five billions by reason of permitted deductions, the amount of bonds was to be so increased as to bring the total payments in cash, kind, or bonds, up to fifteen billions by May 1, 1921. If a Reparations Commission, the decisions of which Germany must agree to accept, should be satisfied that more yet could be paid, a third issue of bonds, amounting to a further ten billions might be exacted. Even this total of twenty-five billions was not to be regarded as final, if Germany's capacity to pay more were determined by the Reparations Commission. Germany was required to acknowledge full liability, and the total sum which she might theoretically have to pay was reckoned by a British expert as between thirty-two and forty-four billions. The Reparations Commission, however, was given the power to recommend abatements as well as increased payments; upon the wisdom of its members the practical application of the treaty would obviously depend.[14]

[Footnote 14: The proposal of a permanent commission for handling the whole matter of reparations was made first by an American financial adviser, John Foster Dulles. The idea was accepted by Lloyd George and Clemenceau as an efficacious method of enabling them to postpone the decision of a definite sum to be paid by Germany until the political situation in France and Great Britain should be more favorable.]

In truth the reparations clauses of the treaty, which compelled Germany to hand over what was practically a blank check to the Allies, represented no victory for Wilson. But he had at least prevented the imposition of the crus.h.i.+ng indemnities that had been proposed, and which must have been followed by political and economic consequences hardly short of disastrous. As for the eastern frontier of France, it was agreed that the right of property in the coal mines of the Saar district should be given outright to France, as partial but immediate compensation for the damage done at Lens and elsewhere. But the district itself was to be placed under the League of Nations and a plebiscite at the end of fifteen years was to determine its final destiny. The territory on the left bank of the Rhine was left to Germany, but it was to be demilitarized entirely, a condition which also applied to a zone fifty kilometers broad to the east of the Rhine. The bridgeheads on the Rhine, as well as the German districts to the west of the river, were to be occupied for periods extending from five to fifteen years, in order to ensure the execution of the treaty by the Germans. The French press contended that Clemenceau had made over-great concessions, protesting that the League would be utterly unable to protect France against sudden attack, especially since the Covenant had not provided for a general military force. In return for these concessions by Clemenceau, Wilson gave an extraordinary _quid pro quo_. He who had declaimed vigorously against all special alliances now agreed that until the League was capable of offering to France the protection she asked, there should be a separate treaty between France, Great Britain, and the United States, according to which the two latter powers should promise to come to the defense of France in case of sudden and unprovoked attack by Germany. The treaty did not, according to Wilson, const.i.tute a definite alliance but merely an "undertaking," but it laid him open to the charge of serious inconsistency.

Thus was pa.s.sed, by means of compromise, the most serious crisis of the Conference. In France Wilson never recovered the popularity which he then lost by his opposition to French demands. In many quarters of Great Britain and the United States, on the other hand, he was attacked by liberals for having surrendered to the forces of reaction. In the Conference, however, he had maintained his prestige, and most moderates who understood the situation felt that he had done as well as or better than could be expected. He had by no means had his way in the matter of reparations or frontiers, but he had gone far towards a vindication of his principles by avoiding a defeat under circ.u.mstances where the odds were against him. More he probably could not have obtained and no other American at that time could have secured so much. The sole alternative would have been for the American delegates to withdraw from the Conference. Such a step might have had the most disastrous consequences.

It was true, or Europe believed it to be true, that the Conference represented for the moment the single rallying-point of the elements of social order on the Continent. The withdrawal of the Americans would have shattered its waning prestige, discouraged liberals in every country, and perhaps have led to its dissolution. Nearly every one in Paris was convinced that the break-up of the Conference would be the signal for widespread communistic revolt throughout central Europe. By his broad concessions President Wilson had sacrificed some of his principles, but he had held the Conference together, the supreme importance of which seemed at the time difficult to over-emphasize. Having weathered this crisis the Conference could now meet the storms that were to arise from the demands of the Italians and the j.a.panese.

Wilson himself was to be encouraged in the midst of those difficulties by the triumph accorded him on the 28th of April. On that day the plenary session of the Conference adopted without a word of dissent the revised Covenant of the League of Nations, including the amendment that formally recognized the validity of the Monroe Doctrine.

CHAPTER XII

THE SETTLEMENT

President Wilson's success in securing approval for the League as the basis of the Peace Treaty was his greatest triumph at Paris; and it was accentuated by the acceptance of certain of the amendments that were demanded in America, while those which the French and j.a.panese insisted upon were discarded or postponed. In comparison with this success, he doubtless regarded his concessions in the matter of reparations and the special Franco-British-American alliance as mere details. His task, however, was by no means completed, since Italian and j.a.panese claims threatened to bring on crises of almost equal danger.

From the early days of the Conference there had been interested speculation in the corridors of the Quai d'Orsay as to whether the promises made to Italy by the Entente Powers in 1915, which were incorporated in the secret Treaty of London, would be carried into effect by the final peace settlement. That treaty had been conceived in the spirit of old-time diplomacy and had a.s.signed to Italy districts which disinterested experts declared could not be hers except upon the principle of the spoils to the strong. Much of the territories promised in the Tyrol, along the Julian Alps, and on the Adriatic coast was inhabited entirely by non-Italians, whose political and economic fortunes were bound up with states other than Italy; justice and wisdom alike seemed to dictate a refusal of Italian claims. The annexation of such districts by Italy, the experts agreed, would contravene directly the right of self-determination and might lead to serious difficulties in the future.

Would the President sanction the application of treaties consummated without the knowledge of the United States and in defiance of the principles upon which he had declared that peace must be made? The application of the Treaty of London, furthermore, would be at the expense, chiefly, of the Jugoslavs, that is, a small nation. The Allies, as well as Wilson, had declared that the war had been waged and that the peace must be drafted in defense of the rights of smaller nationalities. Justice for the weak as for the strong was the basis of the new international order which Wilson was striving to inaugurate.

Had the struggle been simply over the validity of the Treaty of London, Wilson's position would have been difficult enough, for the Premiers of France and Great Britain had declared that they could do nothing else but honor the pledges given in 1915. But Italian opinion had been steadily aroused by a chauvinist press campaign to demand not merely the application of the Treaty of London but the annexation of Fiume, which the treaty a.s.signed to the Jugoslavs. To this demand both the British and French were opposed, although they permitted Wilson to a.s.sume the burden of denying Italian claims to Fiume. As time went on, Orlando and Sonnino pressed for a decision, even threatening that unless their demands were satisfied, Italy would have nothing to do with the German treaty.

Finally, on the 23d of April, the crisis came to a head. On that day the President published a statement setting forth the American position, which he felt had been entirely misrepresented by a propagandist press.

Emphasizing the fact that Italian claims were inconsistent with the principles upon which all the Allies had agreed, as necessary to the future tranquillity of the world, he appealed directly to the Italian people to join with the United States in the application of those principles, even at the sacrifice of what seemed their own interest.

The appeal was based upon sound facts. Its statements were approved publicly by allied experts who knew the situation, and privately by Clemenceau and Lloyd George. It had been discussed in the Council of Four and by no means took Orlando by surprise. But it gave Orlando an opportunity for carrying out his threat of retiring from the Conference.

Insisting that Wilson had appealed to the Italian people over his head and that they must choose between him and the President, he set forth at once for Rome, followed by the other Italian commissioners, although the economic experts remained at Paris. Orlando was playing a difficult game.

He was hailed in Rome as the defender of the sacred rights of Italy, but in Paris he lacked partners. Both the British and French agreed with Wilson that Italy ought not to have Fiume. They secretly regretted the promises of the London Treaty, although they were prepared to keep their word, and they were by no means inclined to make further concessions in order to bring Orlando and his colleagues back. After a few days of hesitation, they decided to go on with the German treaty and to warn the Italians that, if they persisted in absenting themselves from the Conference, their withdrawal would be regarded as a breach of the Treaty of London which stipulated a common peace with the enemy. They also decided that Italy could not expect to share in German reparations if her delegates were not present to sign the German treaty. Such arguments could not fail to weigh heavily with the Italian delegates, even at the moment when the Italian press and people were giving them enthusiastic encouragement to persist in their uncompromising course. On the 5th of May Orlando left Rome to resume his place in the Peace Conference.

In the meantime the j.a.panese had taken advantage of the embarra.s.sment caused by the Italian withdrawal, to put forward their special claims in the Far East. During the early days of the Conference they had played a cautious game, as we have seen, attending meetings but taking no decided stand upon European matters. They had even refused to press to the limit the amendment to the League Covenant which enunciated their favorite principle of the equality of races. But now they insisted that on one point, at least, j.a.panese claims must be listened to; their right of inheritance to the German lease of Kiau-Chau and economic privileges in the Shantung peninsula must receive recognition. This claim had long been approved secretly by the British and French; it had even been accepted by the Chinese at the time when j.a.pan had forced the twenty-one demands upon her. It was disapproved, however, by the American experts in Paris, and Wilson argued strongly for more generous treatment of China. His strategic position, one must admit, was not nearly so strong as in the Fiume controversy. In the latter he was supported, at least covertly, by France and England, whose treaty with Italy explicitly denied her claim to Fiume. The j.a.panese threat of withdrawal from the Conference, if their claims were not satisfied, carried more real danger with it than that of the Italians; if the j.a.panese delegates actually departed making the second of the big five to go, the risk of a complete debacle was by no means slight. Even a.s.suming that justice demanded as strong a stand for the Chinese as Wilson had taken for the Jugoslavs, the practical importance of the Shantung question in Europe was of much less significance. The eyes of every small nation of Europe were upon Fiume, which was regarded as the touchstone of Allied professions of justice. If the Allied leaders permitted Italy to take Fiume, the small nations would scoff at all further professions of idealism; they would take no further interest either in the Conference or its League. Whereas, on the other hand, the small nationalities of Europe knew and cared little about the justice of Chinese pleas.